Front and Back Covers, Volume 23, Number 3. June 2007

Front & back cover caption, volume 23 issue 3 PARTISAN ‘ANTHROPOLOGY’ The cover of this issue reproduces a Republican Party campaign poster from 1900, which claims that between 1896 and 1900 the American flag was being planted on foreign soil not ‘to acquire more territory’ but ‘for humanity's sake’. The poster contrasts an image of economic decline at home and poverty in the Spanish colony of Cuba, alleged to be the Democratic legacy in 1896, with one of prosperity in the US and progress in its new dominion after four years of Republican rule. The next US presidential elections will take place in November 2008, and campaigning for nomination is already under way. Partisan proclamations that territories are occupied for ‘humanity's sake’ suggest good intentions, but anthropology researches and seeks to connect with humanity as a whole, not to serve one party or one nation over another. Bush's ‘war on terror’ has divided the world, generating a renewed interest in partisan use of the social and behavioural sciences, including anthropology, in the hope that these might help succeed where force has failed. The 2007 annual meeting of the Association of Social Anthropologists resolved that a research proposal by our principal research funding agency endangered lives and was in violation of our professional ethics. History will not judge us kindly if funding agencies proceed unilaterally, or if our professional associations fail to give clear guidance on the circumstances under which it is appropriate for professional anthropologists to be involved in such activities, if at all. Everyone supports non‐partisan use of academic research for ‘humanity's sake’. However, since anthropologists cannot research without first gaining and then retaining the trust of the peoples they engage with in the course of fieldwork throughout the world, in open and willing long‐lasting relationships, partisan deployment of our research in war constitutes a potentially life‐threatening development for the peoples we befriend, for ourselves, our students, our profession and for our family and colleagues. As part of an ongoing engagement with how our research, and that of other social and behavioural sciences, is being appropriated in war, this issue of ANTHROPOLOGY TODAY features discussions on their use in two areas of warfare, with contributions on counterinsurgency, by Roberto González, David Kilcullen and Montgomery McFate, and unwitting input into interrogation techniques, by David Price.